Friday, February 17, 2006

HTC Universal as a Bluetooth Modem

I've complained in the past [1, 2] about my total inability to get my Orange SPV M5000 (a.k.a the HTC Universal) working as a Bluetooth modem with my Apple Powerbook, and I wasn't the only one [1, 2] to be having problems either.

I'd pretty much given up, therefore my congratulations have to go to Ross Dargahi (found via Juston Blanton) for working it out...

The instructions below works for my Orange SPV M5000 (a.k.a the HTC Universal) and my Apple Powerbook, running Mac OS X 10.4.4. Your milage may vary, but from other reports they seem to be fairly generic for all Windows Mobile 5.0 devices.

  1. Download Ross Barkman's iPAQ modem script, and install this into /Library/Modem Scripts. It's okay to rename this file to something more appropriate, e.g. HTC Universal GSM, if you want to do that.
  2. On your HTC Universal enable Receive all incoming beams in Settings > Beam, and then turn on Bluetooth amnd make the device discoverable in Settings > Bluetooth.
  3. Set up an new Incoming Port (COM0) under Settings > Bluetooth > COM Ports.
  4. If you're running Mac OS X 10.4 then go to System Preferences > Bluetooth > Set Up New Device to run the Bluetooth Setup Assistant. When prompted choose Any Device when asked to select the device type, as the HTC Universal does not advertise itself correctly as a phone. If you're running 10.3.9 then you should see Ross Barkman's comments on my post talking about my problems with Panther and the Universal's dial-up networking stack.
  5. Select your device from the list of detected Bluetooth devices and pair the devices in the normal way, remembering to select Access the Internet with your phone's data connection when prompted.
  6. Enter *99# into the Phone number field, rather than your networks APN. For instance I'm on Orange in the UK, but despite this I still enter *99# rather than the Orange APN, "orangeinternet" into the field. Additionally, even if your network does not require a username and password you should enter something in those fields. Orange doesn't require me to pass a username or password, but none the less I entered "orange" for both. However if your network doesn't require it, you can enter whatever string you like here it won't make a difference. But if you don't do this, the script will not work correctly. Information about APN information for your network can be found either form your network provider, or from Ross Barkman's GPRS information page.
  7. Select your freshly installed modem script in the drop down menu in the setup assistant and finish setting up your device.
  8. In System Preferences > Network > Bluetooth, in the PPP tab click on PPP Options and make sure that Use TCP header compression is unchecked.
  9. Go to the Bluetooth Modem tab and make sure that Use TCP header compression is unchecked. Disable both Enable error correction and compression in modem and Wait for dial tone before dialing and apply your changes.
At this point your Mac and HTC Universal should be set up and you just have to hit Dial Now and then Connect and it should all "just work"...

21 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:05 pm

    This works on my Cingular 2125 phone!

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  2. Thank you soooo much for posting this. I've spent countless hours trying to figure it out. Now if only you could find a free way to add it to iSync :-)

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  3. Excellent, following this allowed my T-Mobile MDA Vario II (HTC TyTN) to act as a Bluetooth modem for my MacBook.

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  4. Sorry, no idea. Although looking at the comments you can see that someone else has got a T-Mobile MDA Vario II working using these instructions, so it is possible.

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  5. oh my good god you are my hero! I have been trying FOREVER to get my T-Mobile MDA phone to connect to the internet via my macbook.....and this worked like a champ on the first try! Thank you!

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  6. I am writing to you from my Macbook using my TMobile MDA via a bluetooth connection. I'm also on a train...This set of instructions was a god send. Thanks man. It works great!!

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  7. Worked on my HTC TyTN!!! (MacBook OSX10.4.8) ... didn't even have to start the stupid wireless modem application thing....

    if u receive a call and it drops the call
    - go to comm manager (button next to the power button)
    - click on the phone icon to switch the phone off...
    - click it again to switch it on
    - reconnect

    Thank you!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thank you so much for this. I have been trying with my Orange m3100 (Tytn) for a few days and despite searching the net, and even finding the above scripts page, did not have any joy. This worked straight off for me, even while I am roaming in the USA. Thanks!

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  9. I have tried to drag this into my Scripts folder but the icon is different to the rest.

    I have viewed the file and it is readible and plain text.

    Do I have to set the permissions on the file or something? I am a bit of a mac newbie

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  10. Has anyone managed to get this working under windows mobile 6?

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  11. Thanks for posting this description. I have fiddled a bit with this in the past, and was very close indeed. The only thing I missed was that I could use the iPAQ script from Barkman also for my HTC TyTN, and in fact for any WM5 probably.

    Thank you very much for pointing this out, and giving a very brief and precise description!

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  12. Works perfect on the Dopod 838 Pro. Thank you.

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  13. This worked absolutely fantastically!!!! My MacBook now works wherever I can get a 'phone signal.

    Three cheers to you!!

    jod3
    http://www.d3-design.com

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  14. it worked for me! My Cingular 8125 works. WM6 compatible too!

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  15. Anonymous2:48 am

    I have an HTC Kaiser TyTn II and AT&T as my carrier. Everything works just fine up until the connection portion. It will connect through PPP and then try to authenticate and fail, then disconnect. Anyone have any ideas?

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  16. Thanks for this very useful info. I was finally able to get my T-Mobile MDA (HTZ Wizard) working with T-Mobile in the US and OSX 10.5 using these.

    I have two updates.

    1.Ross Dargahi has updated his scripts and now has Windows Mobile specific scripts.

    2. I was unable to get this to work until I disabled BluePhone Enabler on my device. I use BluePhoneElite 2 on my Mac which requires this on my device. No big deal since I don't need to use both at the same time, but I nearly gave up until I figured this out.

    Thanks again!

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  17. This worked on my UK T-Mobile MDA Vario 2 with Macbook Pro Nov 2008 model OS X 10.5.5

    Sys Prefs > Vendor : Other > Model > Windows Mobile....

    Using the Windows Mobile specific scripts above.

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  18. I couldn't make it.
    I have a MacBook Pro running OS X 10.5.5 and a Htc Touch windows mobile 6.

    The script that I've downloaded didn't work and I didn't found in my library a folder named Modem Scripts.

    Thanks for the help.

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  19. I was downloading the library to connect when I noticed there's a new version on the site, for 3g and hdspa phone, so I download the new one. The guide didn't work for me, so i try by myself.
    I wrote my guide, is very short (probably they add the feature in 10.5?) and there's a link to yours if mine doesn't work.
    http://obsidianart.blogspot.com/2009/07/connect-macosx-trought-htc-s730-italian.html

    ReplyDelete